Trump's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Grift

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Now there's the cheese. A new knowledge legacy of the Catholic Church.

“Now it's the time to take a walk around the Netherlands. It's the best way to test it.”

It's the cheese cheese cheese. Now it's the time to test it. It's the time to test it on the 18th year. It's the time to test it on the 18th year. It's the time to take a walk around the cheese minus action. It's too beautiful ladies like this. They're going to have a last word. She's small, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, "I ask no favor for my sex.

All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet or far next." Hello, and welcome back to Strix Curtney, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. Where you're hosted today, I'm Melissa Murray. I'm Kichael. And I'm Leah Lipman. And here's the plan for today. It's been quite a week for the deal-dose as it were.

So we are going to start with legal news and then cover Supreme Court opinions.

Finally, we will bring you a great conversation, Kate and Melissa recently had with one of Kate's colleagues at Penn Law.

Dorothy Roberts about her terrific recent book, The Mixed Marriage Project. We might interest for some favorite things before that interview. Some after little special announcement, so be sure to stay tuned for all of that. At first, the legal news. Well, folks, it's official.

We've have what everyone's been waiting for. You guessed it. A slush fund for insurrectionist. Yes, that's right. The Trump administration will be trying to give your tax dollars to your friendly local neoconferred trader, or as they like to call them, the true victims of law fair and the weaponization of the Department of Justice.

“Are we being taxed ladies for not doing an insurrection?”

Are we losing out because we were not insurrection forward? It sure feels like that doesn't it. Like all of us, we are all being taxed for that. So just to fill in the backstory a little bit with an hours of Trump filing a notice that he was dismissing

his absurd 10 billion dollar lawsuit against his own IRS, a lawsuit.

Remember where he was asking himself as president to have the IRS that he supervises fork over 10 billion with the bead dollars of public money to Donald Trump himself along with his kids and his business. Within hours of that, the DOJ announced that it was creating an almost $2 billion account to pay those who have allegedly suffered at the hands of the weaponization of DOJ. Almost $2 billion, but at least as conceived, actually $1 billion, $776 million. Get it, $177 million.

Maybe they do read. Not sure, but possibly.

“Some of us are thinking about constructive ways to commemorate this important event.”

Like those of you listening and not watching on YouTube, writing a whole ass book. Like Melissa Murray, the U.S. Constitution, a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader, not user, or user both. Um, anyway. I want to do that. Maybe a slush fund.

What have been faster? No, with this administration is doing because these are the only things that really knows how to do. Our troll and engage in self-dealing, and this slush fund is both. I would like to take a few beats on the ostensible beneficiaries of said slush fund.

I would like to stare in New York attorney general, Tish James.

“I would like to stare in former FBI Director Jim Komey.”

I would like to stare in every single protester who has been indicted or arrested by the Goon squads and so much more. Are they the victims of law fair? Apparently not. So I was actually thinking about filing a claim myself, given that I personally have been a victim of Samolido's law fair. And Neil Gorsuch's law fair.

In fact, if you are listening, everyone raise your hand. If you have been personally victimized by the Supreme Court's law fair. You'll notice that everyone around you is raising their hand. Unfortunately, the settlement defines me and likely you out of eligibility. We probably shouldn't even be calling this thing a settlement.

It's an agreement between Trump and Trump's former personal lawyer Todd Blanche, aka Cart Blanche,

who's now the acting head of what Trump likes to call Trump's DOJ.

So it's Trump on both sides of the V, which is part of what makes this a deal-do. But the settlement agreement slash deal-do defines the law fair victims who are eligible for funds as the victims of law fair that is defined to mean the, quote, "sustained use of the "lovers of government power by Democrat-elected officials." You cannot make this up.

Okay, so this was announced as a quote-unquote settlement in the litigation. Trump versus IRS, which we were just talking about. But as Leah just suggested, it really shouldn't be called a settlement at all, because it's just an agreement between the parties and the parties are both Trump. So it's Trump and the IRS slash DOJ.

But again, Trump on both sides of the V, because those parties did not ask for court approval likely because they could not get it.

“Because the lawsuit is just, I think, designed to provide the kind of patina of legality”

to this massive grift, which is a point the three of us made in a piece last week

in the San Francisco Chronicle. I just want to reiterate, this isn't a settlement. It's really like a legal selfie, right? You're just like taking a picture of yourself settling with yourself, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Money for the slush fund is supposedly coming from what is known as the judgment fund. This is an account that's available to the Department of Justice for settling lawsuits. A group of five people who were selected by Donald Trump's former personal attorney and now current acting attorney general Todd Blanche will oversee its operations.

And one of those five people will be selected in consultation with Congressional leadership. So that's something. Maybe one of us might be selected to serve as that, Congressionalty appointed supervisor of said slash fund. Do you think?

Sure, that phone call will come. I bet it's Lisa Cook. I bet she's going to get the nod. Unless even if we were selected, or if Lisa Cook was selected, Trump can fire the members of the oversight group at will, which means he effectively controls them.

The fund will determine its own procedures for reviewing claims, which is shorthand for saying that all claims will be awarded based solely on vives. Indeed, the slush bag itself seems to be a whole vibe given that within 24 hours of announcing the deal-do, the deal-do had already been amended to try and fuck over the country and the American people even more.

So the Trump DOJ announced that it had expanded the just announced settlement slush fund to include a pledge that the DOJ/IRS will no longer pursue any claims. It might have against Trump his family members and his companies. The seems to be trying to bar the IRS from auditing the Trump family and Trump organizations for all eternity, and maybe also trying to bar DOJ from pursuing any claim.

It might have against Donald Trump, again, for all eternity. And this all certainly seems like it's on the up and up. So although it seems like they may have been trying to do some kind of self-partent without calling it self-partent, I'm not sure they really got it done the way they hoped to, because this, again, is nothing more than an agreement.

It's just a contract, which means I'm no contracts professor, but I'm pretty sure I recall that a contract is subject to various kinds of challenges like being unconscionable or against public policy. And it's manifest in propriety as an obvious legal defects. Would also mean it's a contractual agreement on which a party, like say Trump,

could not reasonably rely, which would mean that a future DOJ should be able to hold them accountable for legal violations, notwithstanding this promise to the contrary.

“It could also mean that the amendment to the agreement, right?”

The one that actually included all of this, like effort at self-parting for any sort of tax law violations, might not be binding, because to modify a contract, there is supposed to be what's called consideration. So both sides are supposed to give each other something. Here, DOJ seems to have just gifted Trump a promise that he would be above the law,

Just trying to describe this apostasy makes clear

how shockingly corrupt and lawless it actually is.

“Is this even the worst and most corrupt scam of the administration?”

I mean, genuine question. There's so many to choose from, but I think this may actually be it. I think so. Like it's tough competition with all the grift from the prediction markets to the cash that's cash with a dollar sign burden.

Does it court take care of the contracts? Sorry. The crispy nose government got drugs going to companies with ties to the administration to crypto pay to play schemes to money for partens. There's also the recent news in disclosure.

It's about how Trump has promoted stocks. He was personally trading in. And now he's traded in hundreds of millions of stocks in 2026 alone. I'd call it insider trading, but it seems not to be that insider. It's just straight up public facing market manipulation.

Also this week, the New York Times reported that Reynolds,

the tobacco company donated $5 million to a Trump backed super PAC.

And then by some miracle, the following week, the FDA turned around and issued new guidance that could make it easier for big tobacco companies like Reynolds to begin selling flavored. Did you all hear the commercials that aired over the weekend

“thanking President Trump for relaxing the rules around flavors?”

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When you head to Smalls.com/strict. Okay, so that context,

“I think, makes clear just how egregious this latest deal,”

though is if it takes the cake even with that competition. So let us just try to elaborate a bit further, just how shocking this is. First, there is the fact that they are using tax payer money. For these payouts.

At least the insider/public-facing, like blatant trading, was with, I think, their own money. This is our money. So question, is this what you would call reparations?

The black delegation says no. Okay, I do say no. Great.

This is what they call interest convergence.

All right. So I would argue that what this really is, is theft of taxpayer money for personal gain. You know, if you can while you're listening, look up a picture of the individuals

who are storming the capital on January 6th, 2021. People carrying zip ties, and wearing like shaman like horns. Is that where you want your tax dollars to go? Your hard earned tax dollars?

“Because that is exactly where it might be headed.”

It's also a potential pay for petto scheme if you just think of the number of January 6thers who are back in jail for child pornography or other sex offenses. Indeed, this came up at Todd Blanch's recent appearance

in the Senate as you can hear here. Let me go back to this slush fund because there's also an individual who, after being pardoned by the president, went on some of the last two children.

And that person actually tried to buy the silence of these children. I say that he would pay them some of the funds that he was hoping to get from your slush fund. Can you commit to making the rule

so that that person is not eligible for a payout under this fund? Well, you're obviously lying in your question because there's no way that this person committed to that but the slush fund, as you call it,

which is not, didn't he? I'm sure. But I can't commit. Secretary General. Don't ever do that again.

I'm reporting what again. As you may also have heard,

“the acting attorney general's response was not a no.”

That was really wild. I'm going to take, I'm going to sort of fly spec this part of the premise of your question but not actually respond to the substance. Because the sort of you're obviously lying

was because Van Hallen referenced this slush fund as opposed to a general promise to get money from the federal government but he very much sidesteped the substance of the question and that seemed really revealing to me.

Charles, imagine storming the capital calling for the vice president to be hanged and for the speaker of the house to be murdered and here's the best part getting paid for it.

That, that is the dream. With taxpayer money, the American people's money. That is the American dream. It's not enough to just legalize insurrection retroactively through the Supreme Court

and an immunity decision and mass-partens like now we're actually making insurrection profitable. You love to see it. Anyway, more seriously though,

some people might actually argue that this is exactly how you create the infrastructure for another insurrection right? You buy yourself an army

and you secure a government resources to fund them, going forward. I mean, that seems to be where this has had it. You did violence before me. I will pay you.

Yeah, right. So, and to be clear, like who is the party response over this, the political party that was apoplectic about student debt forgiveness

and is now obviously all in on insurrection forgiveness,

you know, having basically an insurrection forgiveness fund

but as Melissa was just suggesting it's not just about paying out participants in this past conduct. It is pretty clearly about providing a permission structure

and even encouragement of future lawlessness and obviously just a further highlight the hypocrisy. There is no money that I have seen suggested, you know, or flowing

for, say, families forcibly separated

but there is, of course, plenty of money to the tune again

“of almost $2 billion for insurrectionists.”

Also, they've been like having this meltdown about a California free diaper program just like in the last week. That price cheating is something that's happened this week. Right, exactly.

Very good.

Just price tag $19 million

like change compared to this fund. Some listeners might also recall the lawsuit that DOJ is filing criminal indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center when they indicted the organization

because they said that organization was somehow funding hate groups it was actually investigating them. If that was a criminal conspiracy and it wasn't this

slush fund is a criminal conspiracy many, many times over and this deal do can also be a criminal conspiracy even if the espielc indictment doesn't describe one.

Correct. So, stunning potential for corruption and also a lot of questions that we still don't have answers to. So, will some of this money go personally to Trump to his friends, to his family, his lawyers,

“Giuliani, Powell, Eastman, like will this be how his lawyers finally get paid?”

That we were even asking these questions out loud is an indictment of the most serious kind of this entire enterprise and this abomination of a fund. Well, here's a superseding indictment.

We'll sum up the money, go to January sixers who were storming the capital. When he was asked these questions directly,

here's what the president of the United States had to say about it.

Do you believe that people who committed violence against capital Hill police officers on January six should be eligible for compensation from this DOJ fund and are you or your family members going to be seeking compensation from that fund? It'll all be dependent on a committee.

A committee is being set up a very talented people, very highly respected people. I think it's a committee of five and again, I didn't do this deal. Once again, listeners, that was not a no. No.

Also, it's up to the committee that I control, not reassuring. Did want to draw attention to one clause, clause D of the Dildo, which is maybe fitting big D of the Dildo. This one says that quote, "Once the funds are deposited,

the United States has no liability whatsoever

for the protection or safeguarding of those funds

regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers or misuse of the funds." Is the United States indemnifying itself against crimes committed with the money that it is paying out from this insurrectionist slush fund?

Why do you think crimes might be committed with this insurrection slush fund? Big D energy. Anyway, somehow with absolutely zero appreciation of the irony, on the very day this slush fund was announced,

our vice president, JD Vance, gave a speech and we wanted to play just a bit of that. Fighting fraud in Washington, D.C., it's a little bit like fishing in a barrel with a nuclear weapon. It is the easiest thing to find.

Every single day, my staff will bring me new reports of the ways that you're being defrauded. And there's a simple principle that I have, which is if you're committing fraud against the American people, you ought to go to prison.

If you are a public official and you're not fighting against fraud, you ought to have your money taken away,

“because you should not be able to steal from all of you”

and give it the fraudsters. Guess what, JD? Sometimes it be's your own people. So can we also remind listeners viewers that one of the presidency ending scandals of Richard Nixon

was that Nixon had a slush fund that he used for political hits and rewards, like, how big was that slush fund? Honestly, it was less than $20. It could literally fit in brown paper bags. That was that slush fund, maybe a kava bag.

Yeah, I mean, like, a little mini one. So the Nixon corruption seems impossibly quaint today, like all presidential corruption scandals of the past, the hardening administration, the granted administration, all of the other corruptions just pale in comparison.

Really all of them together, I think pale in comparison to what we were seeing with just this fund. It is also a massive threat to the separation of powers. Because it is essentially a template for allowing the executive branch to fund essentially any program that it wants to,

by engineering some clues of litigation that it could, quote, settle by establishing a fund for its desired program. So this deal, though, is a purported again settlement resulting from a case brought by Trump against Trump's DOJ.

That settles the case against Trump's DOJ.

to whoever Trump wants, you could rinse and repeat in any number of ways to fund

“to God who can imagine the sorts of odious activities they might want”

to pursue this way. This is another seizure of a power that the constitution assigns to Congress, the power of the Purse. But if you're not, as Kate was suggesting,

up top, the cash value of the fund was set at 1.776 billion,

a nod to the nation's founding, just like the founders intended. Am I doing originalism right, Neil and Clarence? This is a 1776 fund for traders. Make Benedict Arnold great again.

I mean, okay, this is all part of a pattern that the three of us have actually written about. We have to get this draft up on SSRN ladies. But we've written a paper where we argue that the president has filed lawsuits and then reached settlements

that ratify his dubious, and in some cases, delusional borderline, sanctionable views about what the law is does, so in ways that vastly expand the scope of executive power,

“maybe even encroaching on the judiciary's power to say”

what the law is.

It is absolutely bonkers, and someone ought to call it out

for what it is. And the paper makes clear, this is just essentially the culmination of this trend. We have seen versions of this in suits against media companies and executive orders targeting law firms and universities.

And it is all part of the same strategy, but this is without question the most egregious example to date. There are also very serious arguments that on top of the other legal issues we have already canvassed. This proposed settlement is illegal in still other ways.

So there's the 14th Amendment. We alluded to this in passing during our last episode. But section four of the 14th Amendment, we all had to get up to speed on section three and also long ago. There's another one, section four.

It says, quote, neither of the United States nor any state

“shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid”

of insurrection or rebellion against the United States or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave. But all such debts, obligations and claim shall be held illegal and void. Sherlan Eifel had a post about this, representative Jamie Raskin has gestured to this.

Very serious argument that this fund which will pay insurrection is violates section four. There is also some federal regulations, so 31 CFR, 256.1. That is the federal regulation on the Department of Treasuries role in paying awards and settlements from the Judgment Fund.

It authorizes awards or settlements that are called monetary. Is this settlement monetary? There is an office of legal counsel opinion that says the fund isn't available for anything other than direct payments. And so it's not clear where DOJ thinks it's getting authority

to do other things like making a apology to Donald Trump or something like that. Then there is 31 USC section 1304 which is the federal statute on the Judgment Fund and it sets up an account this pot of money that Congress has appropriated to allow DOJ to pay the settlement set it reaches. It allows settlements when the attorney general is defending in litigation

or a lawsuit. But the settlement claim is only supposed to be paid in a manner similar to judgements in like causes. How could that possibly be satisfied here? There is no judgment in any cause that is similar.

Nor would there be because in this case, in any similar case, there's no justifiable controversy and there's certainly not going to be any sort of judgment growing out of it. There's also language from previous Scotus opinions that suggest this fund is a legal, a general appropriation for payment of judgments in any event does not create

an all-purpose fund for judicial disbursement. And that opinion also notes the possibility of causative lawsuits in particular. So the acting attorney general, aka Trump's former personal attorney, put out a memo that reported to explain why this slush bag sleeves fund shake down was legal. In hindsight, maybe there should only be two S's used to describe this abomination,

think about that one for a second.

Anyways, it's not legal and you can drive a truck through the legal analysis, so just to take one example, the memo sites a fund originating from the keeps equal case as precedent for this fund. But in keeps equal, there was a court approved settlement. Not one here.

Also in that case, there was a certified class. At you a court certified a class of people who were potentially injured. No such thing here. There was an administrative claims process. In that case, it happened in front of a neutral body and held claimants to evidentiary standards.

No such thing here, no guaranteed transparency, rules, accountability, just Todd Blanche and some people the president can fire at Whit. Could go on, but you get the point. So listeners, we've received your questions about who can challenge this abomination. Unfortunately, the district court that was hearing Trump's nominal lawsuit against the IRS.

That was the one where there were real questions about just disability, because the president was literally on both sides of it. That was the precipitating basis for this settlement slush fund.

to look into the legality of the quote unquote settlement,

“we're not really going to be able to have anything going forward.”

And all of that is kind of a bummer, a real missed opportunity. So there are some potential obstacles. So taxpayers, as a general matter, can't sue just because they don't like the way their taxes are being spent or even because they think those taxes are being spent in illegal ways, at least in the federal system.

Possible that people who would be or could be compensated out of the general judgment fund, from which this money might be drawn, could have standing to claim their injured. We actually already had two officers who were injured in the attack on the capital. Sue to challenge this fund. It's not entirely clear that they've established that they would be injured by it.

So again, that could pose an obstacle to their litigation. But there will be other lawsuits marked my words. But again, challenging collusive litigation is tough. There is no getting around it. What might be the solution here?

Well, let me look in Article 1.

“Oh, a Congress, a Congress might be good here.”

You found it? I did. It's right here in Article 1 of the Constitution. You read it for the articles. Congress, I'm told, is authorized to pass laws.

They also have the power of the purse, which means they could withhold funds. They also have oversight power, which means they might hold hearings about the use of this fund and how funds are being dispersed. And wait for it. Congress could sue if it wanted to, although the courts could also impeach.

Speaking of the courts, you know, who probably loves this entire thing. John Roberts and his band of boys. It is pushing their voting rights decisions out of the new cycle, even though they bear a lot of the blame here. Like who told this guy Donald Trump, he could commit crimes with impunity and be above the law.

He learned it from watching you dad, who flat out told him he had plenary authority over the Department of Justice and it didn't matter why he was ordering DOJ to do things. After we recorded our regular episode, some news came out about real weaponization of DOJ and law fair. Some of you might be familiar with the case of the so-called "Broadview 6." The indictment of six people, including the then congressional candidate Kat Abu Gazealia,

protesting outside of the "Broadview Immigration Detention Center" in Illinois, during the Operation Midway Blitz. Prosecutors indicted multiple individuals for allegedly conspiring to impede a federal agent, with some signs and megafones and allegedly pushing or scratching a car, while the protesters were on foot and the agent in a car.

These charges were always outlandish, but they were felonies.

And they faced up to seven years in prison. Well, last Thursday evening, the Prosecutor dismissed the charges. With prejudice, which means the defendants cannot be charged again. This dismissal came as the defense attorneys pushed to have the full transcripts of the grand jury proceedings released.

So the grand jury is the jury before the jury. It's the group of people, prosecutors have to convince to issue an indictment in order to charge someone with a felony. And well, well, well, at a hearing, the judge described she was shocked by what she saw in the redactions of the transcripts, and that she had never seen

these types of prosecutorial behavior. So what did she see? A lot, something called vouching, which prosecutors absolutely cannot do in front of a grand jury, where there's no defense attorney there. Prosecutors supposed to present evidence to the grand jury in the grand jury,

neutrally and impartially decides whether the evidence, the facts, suggests defendants may have actually committed a crime.

Vouching is where the prosecutor basically says,

"Don't worry, trust me, I'm a prosecutor. There were definitely crimes here.

“I may not have evidence, but there's some secret additional evidence”

and you can trust me." That completely eviscerates the role of the grand jury. And it's function. This is the kind of stuff a judge suggested, former whatever U.S. attorney Lindsay Halligan did. That's a former insurance lawyer who obtained indictments against Jim Komi

and Tisch James, only for the indictments to be promptly dismissed. In the broad UK, the judge also said the prosecutor communicated about the substance of the case with grandgers outside of the grand jury room. Trying to communicate with them off the record in secret. I don't know why these people are obsessed with off the record.

Recall Lindsay Halligan texting the law fair editor and trying to tell her this is all off the record. But again, on the broad UK's worst still, the prosecutor excused grandgers dismissed them, sent them out of the room when grandgers didn't want to return an indictment.

And then they continued to ask the remaining grandgers to indict the defendant.

Basically, that's a way for the government to whittle down the grand jury

Again, completely undermining the function of the grand jury,

“which is supposed to be independent and partial.”

That is also the stuff, all of this, that the government tried to redact. Conceal from the judge and the defendants, stuff that would absolutely require the felony case to be dismissed, immediately. Instead, the government concealed this and then tried to keep these transcripts from ever seeing the light of day by dismissing the felony charges

and keeping a misdemeanor charge. And misdemeanor charges don't require a grand jury. So then the government said, "Oh, you don't actually need to see these no big deal." And that forced the defendants to continue defending themselves for almost whole entire year, even as prosecutors knew all this had happened.

The judge in the case is obviously not happy with them, even though the case is dismissed. She is reserving the possibility of sanctioning the government lawyers, finding there were ethical violations as she should, because that's the kind of stuff that gets people disparate.

It should be career ending. And the judge also told prosecutors that this evidence really made the case for the defendant claiming all of this was what are called vindictive prosecutions. Also known as the weaponization of DOJ and law fair, prosecuting persecuting people because of who they are,

not what they did. And that also would have required the dismissal of the misdemeanor charges.

Basically, the prosecutors are junking all the legal protections and rules

that exist in the world just to go after certain people because of what they say and believe. Given how frequently this seems to be happening, this should raise questions about so many cases, all cases, even lower profile ones are out of the public eye. And with that, we are now back to our regularly recorded episode.

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And after your purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support strict scrutiny and let them know that we sent you. Well, federal DOJ lawyers are doing FUKNO's what other prosecutors are still into enforcing the law, and that includes the prosecutors in Minnesota.

And indeed, the same day that DOJ announced its slush fund for insurrectionists, state prosecutors in Minnesota announced that an ice officer is being charged in conjunction with a non-fatal shooting.

And the Minnesota officials are charging him with second degree assault

and one count of falsely reporting a crime. Here, the Trump administration basically admitted that the officers involved lied under oath about the shooting. A federal judge dismissed charges based on the officer's account and federal officials opened an investigation into whether the officers

had lied about what happened. These are the first reported charges arising out of an enforcement action or enforcement proceeding.

“And the last indictment concerned an officer who went”

"Berserk while driving on duty." So this is huge. I love that the go for state is making federalism great again. Go ahead, Minnesota. Texas, on the other hand, does not seem to understand this whole federalism thing

at all. So in the last episode, Kate and Lee had talked about DOJ's "aggregious forum shopping." So DOJ went to Texas and filed a case in a Texas district court to enforce a subpoena that required a Rhode Island hospital

to provide information about its provision of medical care to trans people. The hospital challenged the subpoena in a Rhode Island court, which issued an opinion barring the DOJ from enforcing the subpoena. And the court also issued some choice words for DOJ.

Well, guess what? You know, who took that personally? A district judge in Texas, one read O'Connor. He decided to go nuclear. He issued what's called an anti-suit injunction that reported

to bar the plaintiffs in the case from filing anything further

in Rhode Island court or in the first circuit,

which is the court of appeals that oversees Rhode Island or in any court other than his court or alternatively, the fifth circuit. It's not forum shopping folks. When the court does the forum selecting for you, I guess.

Maybe this is what the kids call "personal" forum shopping. And judge O'Connor is now America's personal forum shopper. You can get one of these at Northstrom. Or maybe folks, it's just "aggregious judicial overreach" and it puts the plaintiffs here in an even more difficult situation.

It's really a toss-up. Because everything is bigger in Texas, the president went ahead and endorsed Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate primary over the current Senator from Texas, John Kornin.

This is after Kornin prostrated himself in front of Trump by abandoning his long defense of the filibuster to urge the Senate to go nuclear and pass the anti-voter save act. So, wait, wait.

I'm trying to understand this. We don't feel bad for John Kornin, do we? Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, impeach people are going to like other impeach people. Right?

So, I mean, it makes perfect sense. Game-recognized games. Yeah, yeah. Have you guys heard some of the calls for... They were impeachy keen.

It's good. For sort of Kornin and Cassidy kind of caucus with the Democrats for the duration of their time in the Senate. Oh, John Kornin is not going to do that. He was actually way back before he was even on the Texas Supreme Court

when he was like the Texas AG, he would like occasionally had a spine and would like do things that would defy like Republican Party orthodoxy. I wonder if in this like twilight of a Senate service he finds that again. I'm just not going to roll it out, but again, I have made this mistake before. There she goes, listeners.

Yeah, he knew she was in there. He knew she was in there. So, one more piece of news before we turn to opinions. A district court has issued an injunction in a case that's really wonky, but very sort of near and dear to my heart

because it's about the Presidential Records Act. So, the administration is taking the insane position that the Presidential Records Act is optional because article two, like literally this very modest requirement that you White House officials hang onto the records of your time

in the People's House doing the People's Business to inform history.

“Like that's what the Presidential Records Act does.”

It's another post-watergate innovation but kind of promote a little bit of transparency and accountability in the presidency. But of course, because it's supposed to do all those things this administration says that's intolerable, it's unconstitutional.

We don't have to abide by it. So, a district court again issued an injunction

barring this White House policy that basically I think says

like don't have to comply with the Presidential Records Act. The problem I think is that the injunction

you know, it does bind every staff member I think

in the White House.

“So, the problem is that if the three of them agee”

and the President and Vice President like think they're insane theory authorizes a shredding party, I'm not sure this injunction bars that. So, that could be happening as we speak. Can these guys figure out how to use a shredder?

The idea that that might be our hope is... Don't want that in the shredder. Right. So, now for some quick recaps of the opinions, the court issued the Supreme Court.

So, in happy news, the Supreme Court dismissed as, and providently, granted the RIT in Hamburg's Smith. That means the Supreme Court isn't going to decide the case and the Court of Appeals decision that had affirmed a trial court's decision

that the defendant in the case is likely intellectually disabled and therefore cannot be constitutionally executed, that decision will stand. Justice Thomas filed a dissent suggesting that the court's decision in Atkins,

that the decision holding that people with intellectual disabilities cannot be executed. He said that decision had created an incentive for people "to convince courts that they are not intelligent enough to be executed,

“which I think is just another way of saying it,”

allowed them/created incentive for them to raise the constitutional claim the court had just recognized in Atkins the horror. So, he calls on the court to overrule Atkins as usual he includes a graphic description of the defendant's crime

and suggests that Atkins is actually bad for defendants because it requires them to suggest they aren't very smart in order to avoid execution. It's just an appalling opinion. It's much better when you suggest that affirmative action means

that people getting into college. Same logic, very smart. Same logic. So, Justice Alito filed what seems to be the principle, main descent, and it was intriguingly joined by Justice Thomas,

Justice Gorsuch, and the chief justice. So, this means that the five Justice Majority who dismissed, as and providently granted, the written in this case, leaving in place a decision-barring Alabama

from executing Mr. Smith, included the three Democratic appointees together with Justice Barrett, and Justice Kavanaugh. Curious. The Alito descent lays out a roadmap for lower courts

to deny Atkins claims presenting it as a clarification of case law. I think it's weird that this is yet another dig. There have been so many digs over the last couple of terms certainly since they got the 63 Conservative Supermajority, which may suggest that having five people, six people,

that you know will say yes to something,

“it means maybe you're not as cheesy as you should be”

about selecting cases. Just going to put that out there.

This is not the first dig we've seen.

There have been how there is in the last couple of years. Anyway. And it is because they're taking so few cases. I mean, look, sometimes it's great. I'm really happy not just like having

their hands on some of these substantive questions. So, it's a relief that they take the off-ramp, but it is curious that they're taking these cases at all if they're not going to resolve. Well, it just seems like maybe they're so zealous

to take some things and then when they recognize, maybe this is just like not a good vehicle for this. They have to pull back in any of them. All right. The court also decided,

"Have they had a Dox Corporation versus Royal Caribbean Cruises, which addresses who's able to sue and which defendants they are able to sue when their properties confiscated by the human government?" So, this property confiscation took place

after Castro took over the government. And this is all kind of curious timing for the announcement of this decision because, as you know, the government hasn't died. Royal Castro, Fidel Castro's brother,

and his successor to the government in Cuba. Here, the plaintiff had a lease on certain Dox, the Cuban government seized the Dox before the lease was set to expire. The lease was going to expire in 2004.

Some commercial cruise lines used the Dox to transport passengers, but after the lease expired. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff, here, the docking company that helped develop

and run the Dox, could sue the cruise lines that had used the property that the Cuban government had confiscated. Scotists said that the Dox themselves were the relevant property, as opposed to the plaintiff docking company's leasehold or the property interest in the Dox.

This expands the scope of liability, that is, who can sue and, for what? Justice Thomas wrote for the eight justice majority, Justice Kagan dissented, Justice Sotomayor wrote separately with Justice Kavanaugh.

They were just fighting a couple of weeks ago to note a few issues that the court had not yet resolved, such as the amount of any damages and whether the plaintiff could sue anyone. He used the Dox and recovered damages from all of them.

Finally, for last week, the court issued M&K Employees Solutions

versus Trustees of IAM National Pension. This is a case about how to calculate what an employer has to pay when they decide to no longer participate in certain pension plans. Employers have to pay a portion of the unfunded vested benefits that existed on a measurement date.

The last day of the plan year before the employer withdrew.

which depends a little bit on actuarial predictions,

“including the plan's future assets and liabilities.”

So, Scotists said that the actuarial predictions didn't have to be applied based on information and assumptions that existed on the measurement date, rather than updating them based on subsequent information. KBJ wrote to the unanimous opinion for the court.

Okay, before we bring you our conversation with the great Dorothy Roberts, let's quickly take through some favorite things. So, I had missed the fact that Demi Lovato released album and I really like frequency of it and a little bit.

Not sure about the rest of it, but those were good songs. So, paperback, addition of my book, is coming out June 16. So, I am running another giveaway, where if you pre-order the paperback,

you can enter to win some merchandise that I made, including the lawless t-shirt, that I am wearing and other similar products, but I also made new ones for the new chapter on the Unitary Executive.

There's not a new chapter of new section. There's the ice out t-shirt, and the I prefer my ice crushed one together with other items. So, check that out, and you can pre-order

from my favorite local indie, literal audiobook store, and you can get a personalized signed copy if you do that before June 9th. So, get on that.

Those are both great t-shirts. My extremely stylish 14-year-old stole that I like my ice crushed. It's kind of a crop top. It's very, very cute.

I'm in the ice out one. I love it. I was waiting for the new Unitary Executive t-shirt that said, "The UTE, it chaves." I don't know how that would work as a t-shirt.

“But I think you know how it would work out.”

I think you'd be right exactly. All right.

Maybe for the second man.

Okay. Well, that is exciting. So, listeners get on that. I have just a couple of things. Brooklyn, half marathon last weekend was hot,

but awesome. I met a couple of stricties there. I got no names because I was really in the zone, but it was awesome to say hi. And I hope you had a great race.

And then the only other thing I'll mention is we're recording this on Thursday afternoon or the Memorial Day weekend. So, Nico Bowie testified this morning. Was like testifying just as we sat down to record

on Thursday. That is before the House Judiciary Committee. On a hearing about, you know, to sort of like wax alarmist by the Republican majority about, you know, rhetoric of court packing

and what a dangerous threat to constitutional democracy court. That's the threat. And right. And so, the testimony was great. And I also just think the fact that this,

the House Judiciary Committee, is nervous enough about calls for court expansion that they are trying to call hearings to beat it back is a hopeful sign. So, it's really important to keep talking about Supreme Court

reform, court packing, and other kinds of interventions. But the court is wildly out of control. And, you know, the idea of doing anything about it seems sort of impossible until we sort of work hard enough to make it feel more possible.

So, props to the folks kind of working to keep it on everyone's agenda. So, I am very excited. And among my favorite things this week is the fact that my book, the Constitution,

a comprehensive and annotated guide for the modern reader, is still on the New York Times, but sellers list. It came in at number eight this week, even though it's backwatered everywhere.

Like my local books don't I told you? Totally sold out. So, I'm just, I'm just going to say it. Some people did not think Jimmy Madison and I could do this.

People were like, who's going to buy a constitution for $20, $30.

“And I was like, I don't know, but I think”

people are in a buy it. I think they are. And so, here we are. Who's right Melissa? I love when that happens.

That happens all the time. Yes. So, I'm really excited about that. And it is a no small part due to the fact that Leah Lipman continues to run

the world's best giveaways. She did another giveaway for the Constitution. And all of you wrote in and you're getting great merch. Thank you, Leah, because I literally

don't know how to do what you are doing with that little website. I don't even know what it is. I don't even know what you are doing. I can just make these t-shirts.

I mean, you did it. And Jimmy Madison and I are so grateful. I call. I went to his grave at Montpire to tell him about the list of.

Kidding. That's, that's an illusion to Emma Thompson at the Oscars. Yes. All right.

I am also reading, "Kin" by Teyari Jones,

which is absolutely amazing.

If you haven't read it, she's fantastic. I enjoyed her first book, her debut, an American marriage, but this one is just absolutely spectacular.

I'm really, really loved it. I also ran into some amazing stricties in the wild. So shout out to Joyce Lynn, Carolyn, and the two lovely young lawyers that I met

at LDF's Equal Justice Dinner, so great to meet you. I know you told me your names, but I am old and getting older, and I just forgot.

I'm sorry. But it was really, you had great shoes, too.

Wow.

Finally, it is graduation season,

“and I wanted to give a shout out to Dr. Helpers class”

at the Trinity School, as well as the Trinity School's class of 2026. I was their commences speaker last week, and it was truly an honor, and I'm so excited for all of these wonderful young people

to get out there and start doing that democracy thing. That sounds amazing. All right. Folks, that's our favorite things. Stay tuned for our next segment,

which is also kind of a favorite thing. It is an amazing conversation that Kate and I had with Dorothy Roberts, Kate's brilliant, brilliant colleague in one of my favorite favorite people

about her recent book, The Mixed Marriage Project. This episode of Strix Fruit Knees brought to you by Aloy Health. Let's be honest. Aging can come with some unwelcome changes.

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in her most recent project. To do something that very few academics do. She has written a book that is deeply substantive, rigorously researched, but also deeply, deeply personal.

We are not surprised that this author could pull off this trifecta. Because she is truly one of the greatest legal scholars of her generation. Someone who's worked, I have admired

and cited for years and years. So listeners, we are thrilled to welcome to the podcast Dorothy Roberts, who is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania

with joint appointments in the departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and the Law School, where she is the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossal Alexander Professor of Civil Rights.

And yes, that means I'm lucky enough to call her a colleague. She's also the founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science and Society, and a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant Taboot.

“And Dorothy has written some of the most important”

legal scholarship on reproductive rights, the family and constitutional law. When I read her book, killing the black body, race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty in college,

it completely changed the way I thought about reproductive rights and continues to inform

And two of her other books,

“shattered bonds, the color of child welfare, and torn apart”

how the child welfare system destroys black families and how abolition can build a safer world or the absolute foundation for the family regulation abolition movement. But although she's written about black women

and the black family, her most recent book, the mixed marriage project, a memoir of love, race, and family, is perhaps her most personal to date and we are so delighted to have Dorothy Roberts here on strict scrutiny to discuss it.

So Dorothy, after that very long, gushing wind up, welcome to the pie. Thanks, Melissa, and I could say, gushing things about you and Kate as well, and I'm so happy Kate to have you as a colleague

and Melissa for us to be virtual colleagues, and sometimes in person, for decades now, right? So it's wonderful to be on your show. Thanks so much.

“Well, we're excited to dive right into this book,”

which I'd just say is a real page turner and I imagine it was kind of a page turner for you. So you start the book by talking about your childhood. You grew up in a very segregated Chicago in the 1960s.

It was a time when relationships barely cross the color line. But the book talks about how different your home was. Your father was a white anthropologist and your mother was a plaque to make an immigrant who was not only his life partner, but in time,

became his professional partner, helping him in his work and his life's work or a series of interviews with mixed race couples, trying to sort of probe what it was like to live in an interracial couple as he himself

was living as part of an interracial couple. And the scope of this research is absolutely stunning. He conducted nearly 500 interviews with black and white couples in Chicago from 1937 through the 1980s and almost a decade after his death,

you spent an entire summer

“sifting through these interview transcripts”

and all of the related materials in that archive. So what did you discover? And how did a project that began as a deeply personal endeavor into your father's legacy result in a book

that's really a memoir about you and your family? Well, I discovered a lot of surprising things when I finally got around to reading all of my father and mothers interviews some personal and some historical.

So the personal part, which was the most stunning, was finding out that he began interviewing black white couples in Chicago in the 1930s.

I always thought, until the moment I pulled out the first interview

from these boxes, my sister had sent me that my father got interested in interracial marriage when he met my mother, who was a student of his at Roosevelt College in Chicago. And he met her in the 1950s

and then he was working on the book my entire childhood. So I imagined that he began writing the book in the 1960s after he and my mother fell in love and were married. And so when I pulled out the first transcript from the boxes

and the date on it was February 19th, 1937, it just completely floored me because that not only meant that he had started these interviews when he was only 21 years old as a master student at University of Chicago, you know, a white kid

basically who'd, as far as I knew, didn't even know black people growing up. But it also meant that he was interested in black women and an interracial marriage relatable before he met my mother.

And so that flipped the whole story of the relationship between his marriage and my family and his research. And then discovering that my mother was involved in the 1950s.

I had no idea this was always daddy's book

that he was working on. I didn't know my mother had conducted, have the interviews in the 1950s. She interviewed all the women while he interviewed all the men. And so there were these personal discoveries,

really upheavals. But then there was also the stories in these interviews, the stories of couples in the 1930s and the 1950s of the 1960s, you know, really his research span a hundred years of marriages

because some of the couples, in fact, 25 of the couples he interviewed in the 1930s were married before the turn of the 20th century and the late 1800s.

And just that was stunning.

“Now, you asked how did I get from digging into a personal story”

and to writing a memoir. It was really that I first thought I have to do something with these interviews. You know, I am an author. I'd like to write about black history and family history

and the law. So I had to write something about these hundreds of interviews. But what happened is I read them and I started to reflect on my family's history and reflect on my parent's relationship and on my own identity.

It turned into a book about me and my family as well as the stories and how I could interview these stories of the people my parents interviewed with my own. Yeah. Well, and it's incredibly powerfully done.

We learn a lot about the subjects of the interviews, but we also learn a great deal about your family, your dad, your mom. And I actually want to ask about. So you referenced Daddy's book, which loomed very large in the household and your childhood.

And like his quest to turn this set of interviews, hundreds of interviews spanning as you said, a century of relationships into a book.

And you knew that he was never able to complete that project

and publish the book. In fact, if I recall correctly, you initially were thinking maybe I'm going to complete this book that he never did and then it of course turned into the memoir. You were just describing.

But you learned a lot about the way he never finished the book. This contract signed, you know, advanced return to later contractual effort.

“There's just much more there than I think you had realized.”

And I have to say, this is pretty wrenching. It just felt especially poignant as a reader in light of the fact that you, his daughter, incredibly successful academic, you know, an author of multiple field defining books

are the one making these discoveries and telling this story. So can you talk a little bit about the publications struggles you found in these boxes? And then if you can't, why you do think at the end of this process,

he was never able to complete the book.

Yes, that's right. I, in a way, wanted to finish the book. He never completed, but expanded into my own personal reflections. And I discovered along with the interviews in these boxes that of his archive and papers that my sister sent me,

a whole folder stuffed with publication details of his efforts to publish the book. And so one of them, I remember very clearly because in 1969, he got a contract from Simon and Schuster, you know, this major New York City publishing house

and he got an advance of $2,000, which was pretty incredible at that time, especially for a professor of anthropology, you know, it got this kind of a contract. And it was the source of extreme jubilation in our house.

It was the most exciting news we've ever had growing up. And we jumped into our Sky Blue Rambler and drove to the downtown Chicago from HyperCunwood and we had a big celebratory dinner at Continue Poards at the shared hotel.

You know, this was really a major event. And then I discovered he had other contracts as well, interest from other trade presses as well as academic presses, just loads of correspondence about this.

And then despite all this, he never submitted

the manuscript. There, it went through so many different iterations at the end he interviewed hundreds of children of interracial marriages and then he was going to write a book about that and it none of it ever happened.

And so part of the mystery, you know, that I explore in my memoir is why.

“And I think the main reason is that he just”

loved interviewing these couples. And, you know, he not only interviewed them, but he brought them into our lives. And his best friends, including St. Clair Drake, who's a major figure in anthropology and African studies

was married to a white woman. And they were both constant figures at our home along with other friends of my parents. My piano teacher, the plumber, you know, just about every character who came through our house

was involved in a mixed marriage or mixed race relationship. And he really built a community. In fact, in the book, I wonder if he materially, you know, significantly increased

the numbers of interracial marriages in Chicago

Well, he did.

And I was really building a network

of interracial couples in the city. And I think he enjoyed doing that. And that didn't want to end doing that. It wasn't that he lost interest because he continued throughout his career

into the 1980s conducting these interviews. But he just couldn't get it down on paper. And, you know, who knows why some people have writers blocking others don't. But he had difficulty getting past

the amount of research he did. And also he got stuck in writing an introduction on the history, which ended up taking up all his time. And I have letters from the editors

and stop writing the history and get to the interviews. But he just couldn't do it. It's such a relatable issue as a writer at an academic, just to get bogged down in something.

And the immediate response is just do more research

“when, like, sometimes you have to put down the pen”

and just try and commit something to paper. But, you know, one of the things that stood out for me here was that his wrenching process was also really wrenching for your mother because she was an actual partner in this.

She was helping, not just helping as a help meet. She was literally on the page with him. She was an anthropologist doing these interviews. She was invested in this book as he was

and it never comes about, but what does come through

as you go through this archive is that she is an academic force in her own right. She's a very talented interviewer. What did you learn about her as an anthropologist as you were going through all of this?

Yes, thanks for bringing her up Melissa because she also plays a critical role obviously in my upbringing and my identity and in my memoir. And she never became a professor

because she gave up her PhD work at Northwestern University in the 1950s when I was born in 1956. And then my sisters who were twins were born a year and three months later.

So she had three little kids to take care of and she invested a lot in this project of my father's not only interviewing, helping to find the mixed race couples and recruit them to the study.

Half of the interviews in the 1950s, a big chunk of them were hers. And I discovered her talent for interviewing and her notes were just the lightful. She writes about the settings

about the personalities. She writes about the children, which was something my father didn't really do other than describing their physical features. You know, and whether they looked more black

or white or in between. My mother described their interactions with the mothers she was interviewing. And they read like screenplays. They're really fun to read.

And I discovered my mother's talent for writing in reading her interview notes. And also understood why she was so frustrated with my father. She constantly harassed him about finishing this book.

“And, you know, I can remember hearing her”

in her British accent. And she was from Jamaica, but she was red. She was taught in a warmer school for girls, which emphasized and helped the proper pronunciation and intonation.

And she would constantly say, "Bub, finish the book, finish the book!" I know all the time. And now I understand why I used to think she was mean

because she was always bothering him about this.

And now I see she invested her PhD, you know, gave that up for him. She raised his children. She worked on the book with him. And she invested so much.

And he never wrote it. She probably would have finished the book herself if she had the opportunity. So, I really came to admire even more than I already did.

My mother's contribution to my father's project that what I saw is his project. And what she sacrificed to raise me and my sisters.

“I think Jamaican's might say she was very”

faxed with him over time. For exactly finishing the book. Very very faxed. The Jamaicans will relate because my mother was more ambitious than my father.

And she just sacrificed her opportunity

and raise us. And one lesson she taught me, and my sisters over and over again, was don't get married until you get your PhD and establish yourself academically.

And in fact, don't date until you do that was really hurt. That's very Jamaican. Don't take away from men and boys altogether. Can I just read a sentence or two Dorothy from early on

when you're talking about your mother? And she comes across so beautifully. And there's a sentence when you're talking about

she's this incredible student in Jamaica

and then she travels to Liberia as a young woman. And you suggest that that journey kind of embodied the contradictions of her personality. So you write quote, she was a woman who defied easy explanation.

Regal and proper, yet down to earth and fun-loving, respectable, yet rebellious, conservative, yet unorthodox. She insisted on strict etiquette and decorum, yet broke every rule that sought to confine how a black woman of her era should live her life.

I love that description and she comes across so beautifully. And I love that you not only describe her, kind of witty and captivating kind of right or lead voice, but also we get a lot of excerpts from the things that she wrote. And you really, they are vivid.

They really do bring these scenes to life. So I want to ask a different question actually though, which is that you describe your surprise in learning.

So the relationships are the first focus

between spouses, these interracial couples. But then also there's a shift to children in your parents' research. And you describe your surprise and learning that you, yourself, our research participant number 224 in the files.

“So can you talk a little bit and reflect on that discovery?”

Sure. So after I spent the summer reading the interviews that my parents conducted of interracial couples, I looked through the interviews of children, hundreds of children that my father conducted during the 19...

He started running the '60s to the '80s. And I didn't have a chance to read them all the way. I did the interviews of the couples. But I kind of flipped through them. And so I was surprised to find a folder on me.

As she said, number 224, and when I opened it up, it contained an essay. I had written in college for a sociology course. Actually, a paper. It was a full-blown paper I wrote for a course on ethnicity.

In my first year in college. And a letter in my father wrote to me as an adult. And then an essay I wrote,

“which I think he must have asked me to write”

to, for his edification of my own identity, and how I felt about interracial marriage. And I believe I also wrote that the summer I finished my first year in college. So of course, this was shocking to me that

he in a way was treating me as a research participant, and that added to this perplexing relationship between his research and my family, discovering that he had started the research project before he started our family.

And now I'm part of that as well. And it also got me though to think more about my relationship to him and about the significance of having a white father as a black woman. For a long time, since I was very little identified,

solely as black and in fact in college. And I write to him about this, which is very painful, I hid the fact that he was white deliberately. I not only didn't correct people when they assumed that my father was black,

but once in that same ethnicity class when we had a small group discussion, and we were supposed to identify each other's ethnic background. And everybody identified me as black,

except one white man in the class,

“a student who said, "I think she has some European background."”

And the instructor turned to me and said, "Dorthy is that true." And I froze. My stomach cleansed. I can still feel that feeling of my stomach clenching

and thinking rapidly. Am I going to reveal that my father's white? And I answered, "I have a white grandmother, but I never met her." Which was true.

I do have a white grandmother, my father's mother,

and I never met her in part

because he was afraid she'd be so upset.

“So I deliberately hid the fact that my father was white.”

And I write about this in this essay that I wrote to him. And I felt so bad about it. It was so mean and disparaging of our relationship, which was very, very close.

And so part of this memoir is my reconciling. You know, in my old age now. This fact that I have a white father, but identify as black. I don't identify as biracial even.

I really leave out that part of my identity when I define myself. But I had to figure out, but I don't want to deny my father. He was extremely important to me.

We loved each other dearly. And he's also probably one of the main reasons why I have devoted my career to studying and opposing racism, especially racism against black women.

And that comes largely from my father's mission throughout my childhood to end the racial caste system as he called it in Chicago. Now, we disagreed about how to do it. He thought the way to do it was to increase

interracial marriages. And I debated him on that. But that underlying mission that connects your work and your life, that your research should be toward a just

and to create a better world that the underlying message he and my mother taught me that there is only one human race and our highest mission should be to uphold our common humanity.

You know, those lessons were essential.

I realized even more working on this memoir to the black woman I am today, to the activist I am today,

“to someone who connects and thinks it's essential”

to connect my scholarship to my activism, to be connected to a community, to a movement, all of that I learned from my father. It's such an interesting question for someone to raise in class.

You have European ancestry. I mean, any one who's sort of looking and black people in the US would say they all have European ancestry for one reason or another.

That part, I mean, the insistence on monoraceality in a world where we know that isn't true, it is kind of stunning. But what also is striking is, you know, I followed your career

for years. In many ways, I think I've tried to model my own career

like your such an amazing example of how

to do work that really matters to you and it's personal, but to do it in a way that is rigorous and meticulous

“and defies what I think some in the Academy”

would think about scholars of color or who write about questions of color and race. To find that the root of that is actually your white father is really interesting and surprising.

And I wonder sort of, what do you make of the academy's derision of quote-unquote "me search" of academics who are deeply deeply and personally connected to what they write about

and this sense that she'd be truly rigorous you must be abstract and theoretical about what you write about and here was your father and your mother deeply immersed in a world

in excavating, academically a world that they inhabited and occupied. Yeah, I don't know that you have to go to the extreme. My parents did actually living out

at their research. And you know, incorporating it so deeply into their family lives. But I absolutely resist this idea that we have to disconnect our research

from our personal lives or from our personal commitments. I don't think I could have written any of my books especially killing the black body and torn apart without being connected to movements

with killing the black body, the reproductive justice movement, which was emerging as I was writing the book. And with torn apart the movement led primarily by black mothers

who's children have been taken from them to and the family policing system. And my ability, my inspiration, and my knowledge about these topics, my motivation.

and camaraderie and collective work

with people in movements that share my values and share my aims

“for what I want my work to be able to do.”

I mean, my highest goal for my books is not so much to advance academic work but to advance the work of activists. And that's the greatest gratification I have is that my books have been seen

as useful to people who are working on the ground to change transform the oppressive systems that I'm writing about. So I really disagree with this idea that we have to be abstract and theoretical

and immune from politics. You know, it's absurd.

Even science, which is biological sciences,

for example, that are supposed to be absolutely hermetically sealed from politics. From the very beginning, been influenced by politics and influence politics, whether we're talking about the life sciences or the social sciences,

it's absurd to say it's a historical to say they're separate from politics. And we're seeing that today more than ever where it's explicit. It's an executive order.

Telling it what the political overlay that you're trying to do. So to me, if you're going to do research, it should be aimed at making the world better at aimed towards social justice.

And I don't see any problem with saying that explicitly and making your work be either entangled with or at least deeply influenced by movements that are working toward justice and equality. And our common humanity.

Well, I really want to just disbodel that and send it to every young scholar thinking about how to make their way. And you're not going to be Dorothy Roberts when you start off and maybe ever.

“But that I think is as good as set of guiding principles”

as you could articulate. And every recruiting committee. Correct. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, and that's sort of a lighter question, which is, yes. I love the cover. The beautiful, I think it's a wedding day, right? Photo of your parents.

I'm holding it up right now for those listening. There are a lot of photos throughout the book, but this, you know, kind of beautiful cover image. I've just curious how of the, you know,

materials that you looked at and considered, how you decided on this one for the cover. Yes.

Well, I've always loved that photo.

It's one of my favorite photos of my, is my favorite photo of my parents. I've got lots of family photos I loved too, with the three of us, the kids, you know, there is well, but my parents together.

It's the one that really shows their deep love for each other. I think the best. And as authors know, you go through different suggestions from the artists, the designers at the press for a book cover.

And the original suggestions were a number of different photos of my family. And there was one cover that left out that photo. And I wrote back, you've left out my favorite photo of my parents. And then the designers got the idea.

Well, that's her favorite photo. Maybe we should just focus on that one. So then they sent me different versions of multiple photos on the cover and that photo on the cover.

“And I said definitely, I think just the one photo that is the best,”

that's the most reflective of my parents love is the one to use. So that's how we came up with it. Yeah, you can really see it. So Dorothy, it gets to wrap up. It's hard not to think about your work in this book

without linking it to the current political zeitgeist, where it feels like so much of the progress that has been made is really under attack and your work is very bald about the attacks on that progress. With that in mind, what is giving you hope in this moment?

What do you hold fast to and what keeps you going in? What feels like a pretty grim timeframe? Yeah, what keeps me going and gives me hope and inspiration. Our couple things, one is going back to what I was saying about being engaged in movements that are working towards a more just society.

with reproductive justice and the movement to abolish family policing

“is that which are led by and predominantly made up of black women.”

And we tend to celebrate even little victories. But we'll celebrate the dissents. We'll celebrate the tiny victories at the local level, even if federal policy is going drastically backward and horrifically backward.

The celebrations of victories remind you that we can win. In the end, we have to just be constant and committed and keep working at it. So that's one. The other is my students. I am so blessed to teach courses where I get the public interest students

who are dedicated to various social justice fields of law. They're going to be public defenders. They're going to be family defenders. They're going to work for public interest organizations. Or if not, you know, some do go to big firms too.

“But they're doing the work on the side or they're doing a lot of public interest work.”

And because I teach reproductive rights and justice, I'm going to get the students who are interested in that.

And so I have over the years had these amazing students who are so dedicated and so committed and creative.

And they give me hope that there is another generation coming along. That's going to continue to do the work for a more equal and just and caring society. All right. Well, that's a wonderful place to leave it. The book once again is the mixed marriage project, a memoir of love, race and family. The author is the incomparable Dorothy Roberts, the book is available now.

Pick up your copy wherever you get your books bookshop.org or anywhere else. It's a beautiful story of love and family and discovery. Thank you so much for joining us today Dorothy. Oh, thank you to I enjoy the conversation. I really appreciate it. Take good care.

That was such a good conversation. I had so much fun talking to Dorothy. She's fantastic. We do have some housekeeping and guess what?

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